


Before

by alittlenutjob



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 00:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4856528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlenutjob/pseuds/alittlenutjob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repost from tumblr, a little angst to go with While I Was Sleeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before

The hardest part is that she looks even more beautiful today than she did yesterday. Maybe more beautiful than he’s ever seen her before. It hurts to look at her.

He’d watched her disappear into a cab at the airport after a hurried introduction to a stranger bright and slick as a new penny. He’d texted her once last night when Morgan sent around the group text trying to find her, but he’d known where she was when he hit send. He knows now as she waltzes into the office with bright eyes. Black lace frosts the edge of her bright pink dress and he recognises it as one from her wardrobe on the morning he watched her pack her bags. She didn’t go home last night.

“Danny, I think he might be the one,” her voice hits him like a 10,000 volts and he struggles not to react physically as she pushes herself into his space the way she always does. A week ago this would have been the herald of an impromptu lunch date, and he’d have sat quietly as she nattered on, usually about Cliff, sometimes about her plans for the practice, always about herself. He knows her bright shiny new love is the only dish on offer today. His stomach is not up for the job.

“He’s not the one,” he says quietly. It feels good to say it. God help him, it feels good to say it out loud for once and stop the words he can’t hear right now before they tumble out of her mouth and into restless dreams and take root in his worst self doubt.

“Jerk!” She pushes his shoulder, forcing the chair to swing left. “Take it back.”

“No, I’m not gonna take it back Mindy.” He sees her face darken, sees the confusion and hurt under her skin, but he couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to at this point. 

He doesn’t want to. 

“I don’t want to listen to you describe graphic plane sex in a restaurant, and I don’t want to tell you how happy I am for you when you make your next mistake, and I don’t want to write your love letters anymore.”

“You’ve never written a loveletter,” she whispers. Like he’d never written her letter after letter when she flew away with her man of god. Like he’d never learned the beats of a song he couldn’t really understand and put them back together for her as she sat on her office floor, face upturned like a flower, eyes like stars.

“What do you think that letter I helped you write Cliff was about? That was a love letter, and you forgot about it and fucked some guy you just met in the span of 10 minutes and I shoulda saved my breath and finished my book.”

The hurt is more plain on her now, she never could hold on to an emotion, and he knows her so well. It will be anger soon, and when the storm passes maybe forgiveness (and maybe he’ll end up on her list of vendettas, but he knows for a fact that he’s been written in and crossed off that list so many times that he should probably be vigilant in her presence.)

“Danny, I know I asked you to help and then walked away from Cliff, but you said it yourself that he was lucky to have me. He broke up with me and you know what? I don’t take him back.”

“Clearly.”

Her eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you jumped on the next train without even checking the destination.”

“What?”

She looks as confused as she does angry now and all he has to offer is a shrug. “You know what I mean.”

Later, when he thinks back on the fight he wishes he’d stopped there, let her storm away and cool down. Sometimes he wonders if Matt took her into his arms as she cried over this fight, if this was the reason that she and Matt stuck.

Her cheeks are as bright as her pink dress now and her eyes glitter dangerously. “Oh I think I know what you mean and if you think I won’t have Morgan come in here and defend my honor- ”

“What honor, Mindy?” The words come out cruel and small like bullets.

Her jaw works and she swallows over and over and he wonders if she’s going to stress barf on his shoes. When she finally speaks her voice is strained and low. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me, Mindy. I’m okay. I think you should be asking yourself what is wrong with you.”

“Nothing’s wrong with you? Are you kidding me? You kidnapped me because you couldn’t face your dad on your own. You couldn’t break up with Christina, and you pushed her away until she dumped you.  _Twice_. You judge me for taking big leaps of faith, but I’d rather die tomorrow knowing that I was willing to risk myself on a maybe than live a coward like you. I might get hurt, but at least I’ll be able to say that I did it for love.”

“You don’t know what love is.”

It rings in his ears, and in his shaking hands, and in his racing heart - the words, the rattle of the door in its frame as she slams it on her way out. He knows in an instant that she won’t be the one to open that door again, and knows that he can’t be the one.

  
* * * * *

He hears rumors about an open relationship, and he ignores facts about how often Brendan comes to their office, and he tells himself that she was always like this, that she would have cheated and been another scar he couldn’t afford to bear. In the quietest part of the night though he knows that he was the scar she couldn’t afford to bear.

“She misses you,” Peter observes quietly at the “welcome back” lunch they throw in his honor the week he returns to be Mindy’s best man. Once upon a time Danny might have been a contender for the spot, but he’s happy to let that sleeping dog lie. He’s not her friend now, and he’s certainly not prepared to stand up in front of people and pretend marriages last. 

“She’ll be fine,” he replies as he slaps Peter’s hands away from his garlic bread. “She’s getting married. She doesn’t need me.”

“Maybe not,” Peter says. “But don’t you need her?”

“Nope.” 

She’s standing next to her office door, deep in conversation with Tamra and he thinks she looks maybe more beautiful than he’s ever seen her, but it hurts less today than it did yesterday, and less than the day before.

“I’m okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a mercy mission brought on by an anon to another writer.


End file.
